Fury pulsed through her like an electrified knife. Did he have any idea how difficult that day had been for her? Who did he think he was, telling her what was reasonable for a thirteen-year-old? Who did he expect think was going to save the world? Him?
Worst of all, where did he get off browbeating her about throwing herself upon the Raven’s mercy—as if she had committed some kind of act of treason? She had been lost and hurt and bereft, but her boyfriend had been too overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all to support her. She had needed comfort, a stalwart shoulder to lean upon, but, like a sapling before a gale, he had given way beneath the strain.
Gaius had failed her.
As quickly as it had flared, her anger began to fade. You must accept in your heart that someone has harmed you. Then, you must be willing to release the pain they have caused.
That had been her mistake. She had not accepted that she had been hurt. Now that she understood, it was easy to begin forgiving him. Gaius had not meant to hurt her, that she knew. His words had been thoughtless, not malicious. As far as letting her down, it was not his fault he had found it all overwhelming. It was a tremendous amount for a sixteen-year-old boy to take in. She should be glad he had recovered at all.
She had been asking too much. He was a very good boy, but he was just a boy.
Rachel forgave Gaius for his complaint that she should have been more obedient, for his concern about her facing danger at a young age, and for his temporary uncertainty in the face of overwhelming oddness. Try as she might, however, the fact that her boyfriend did not understand her love for the Raven still smarted.
As long as she was being truly honest, his lack of understanding about the Raven did far worse than smart. It radiated agony, like trying to walk on a broken leg. She had no idea why this one thing hurt so much, but she could easily forgive him for the rest of it.
Standing on the ice, surrounded by dancing blue and violet will-o-wisps, Rachel owned up to how difficult the last couple of weeks had been for her. She had dwelt in a haze of gloom. She had hardly eaten for days. All her clothing was looser on her now, and she had been slender to begin with. She had even missed a class!
She could not risk this happening again. She needed someone at the helm of the ship of her soul who would not bend before the winds of adversity. She needed to choose a new most favorite person.
Rachel looked up at Vlad, who still skated beside her. Could it be him? He did remind her of her grandfather, who had been the first person to hold this position. Much as she admired Vladimir Von Dread, however, he would not do. He might seem confident and impressive, but he was only nineteen. He was not omniscient. Because that was what she needed. Someone who knew so much that, if he gave her an order, she would actually believe he understood the situation better than she did.
Gazing through the trees as they glided along, Rachel’s eyes came to rest on the place where she had skated out a figure-eight while asking Jariel about the fate of Remus Starkadder. And suddenly, she understood. She knew exactly why Gaius’s siding with her father had hurt so much. Her boyfriend had chided her for favoring the one person whom she most loved in all the world—not in a romantic fashion, as she loved Gaius, but with a pure love, joyous and deep.
Thank you, little one, the Raven’s voice whispered in her memory, I love you, too.
Rachel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. As she exhaled, she felt the helm of her soul pass out of the hands of Gaius Valiant, much as she adored him, and into those of the one she now realized that loved more than any other—the tall, winged Raven who had risked the world to let her remain herself.
Chapter Thirty-Four:
Plunging Pell-Mell Into the Ocean of the Heart
A blaze of light illuminated the darkening forest. Wisp-sculptures shaped like large hanging lanterns—made of domestic golden-white will-o-wisps—ignited above the skaters. These, too, were reflected in the ice below, so that the glowing purple, blue, and white-gold points all danced like living glitter around the skaters, who now seemed to float amidst the twinkling. The entire frozen forest looked like an enchanted ballroom.
Rachel and Vlad skated along the outside of the impromptu rink. Away from these central wisp-lanterns, the evening was rapidly growing dark. Occasionally, they navigated too close to branches, and the short, soft, flat needles of the hemlocks brushed their hair and faces. The scent of evergreen filled their nostrils.
They came to a fallen trunk. Rachel slowed, preparing to cautiously step over it. Vladimir, however, sped up. He leapt into the air and, bending his knees so as to bring up his feet, and sailed over the obstacle. Straightening his legs on the far side, he resumed skating, as if his blades had never left the ice. Rachel gawked, impressed. He had done this quite casually, as if it were the most natural of things to jump effortlessly over logs while on skates.
The roar of rushing water distracted her from her admiration of her future brother-in-law. She turned, searching for the source of the sound.
“I thought the Ko sisters froze everything,” she said.
Von Dread shook his head. “Only the floodwaters. The creek is still running underneath. What we are hearing is the waterfall. Shall we head that way?”
He offered his hand, and Rachel shyly took it. They skated side by side through the dark trunks. The sky was now a deep blue, with feathery clouds of dove gray and smoke gray hovering in the ever darkening sky. They heard the roar of the falls before they saw the brink over which the water plummeted. Curious, Rachel let go of his hand and skated closer.
“You should be careful, Miss Griffin,” Von Dread advised. “The ice is thinner where the water is running.”
“Oh, I know.” She flashed him a pixy-like half-smile over her shoulder. “We have a lake at Gryphon Park with its own stream. We know to stay away from the dam when skating. But here, unless I am over the creek itself, even if the ice broke, I’d only fall a foot. And I can see that it is frozen all the way down.”
She peered at the milky ice beneath her feet, catching glimpses of imperfections here and there to a depth of about a foot.
Vlad nodded thoughtfully. “We could also walk on the snow, if you wanted to look out over the edge. There is a boulder right there—by that large hemlock—that offers a good vantage point for gazing down at the falls.”
The two of them stepped from the ice and walked carefully on their blades, leaving long marks in the newly-fallen snow. When they reached the boulder, Rachel brushed snow from the large rock and leaned over it. She lay on her stomach with her silver skates kicking in the air and peered over the edge at the waterfall. Frozen fingers of ice hung down, forming jagged, lace-like formations, below which water flowed freely. The whiteness of the ice seemed to glow in the near-darkness. From the brink to the small pool below was a drop of twelve feet. Leaning over thus, Rachel listened to the nigh-deafening noise of the water. Staring down, she felt as if she were about to plunge into the icy waters of the pool beneath, even though she knew she was safe on the boulder.
“Miss Griffin, a pair of asrai live here.” Vlad’s first word was hard to hear over the roar of the falls. As he spoke her name, however, her black bracelet vibrated, and she could hear his voice perfectly in her ear. “Any sign of them?”
Rachel shook her head, her attention focused on the pool below. “This is the uppermost falls of Roanoke Creek, right? Do they live in all four waterfalls? Or only this one?”
“I have not seen them at the others.” He stood behind her, one hand resting on the branch of the large hemlock. “I have seen them here, upon occasion, when I came up here from the boardwalk.”
Rachel turned her head, staring down the creek to the south, but she could not see the boardwalk from here. “I never see anyone on the boardwalk when I fly by it. Why is it there, if no one uses it?”
“It was originally a bridle path,” he replied. “Back when horses were still part of the academy’s curriculum. When the school modernized in the seventies and dismantled
the stables, the bridle path was turned into a boardwalk. It was quite popular, I am told. After the Battle of Roanoke, however, the entire campus shut down for a few years. When the school started up again, about twenty years ago, none of the new students were aware of the boardwalk’s existence, so very few people come here anymore.”
Rachel crossed her arms on the cold boulder and rested her chin on them. Almost no one used the boardwalk, and yet Vlad had come this way often enough to have seen the elusive water fey who lived in the falls—not just once but “upon occasion.” Rachel herself had been on the boardwalk only a few months ago. She had come with…Sandra.
Oh, of course. That must have been how Vlad and her sister carried on their romance without Peter or Laurel knowing about them. They probably spent quite a bit of time on the boardwalk—where they could be relatively certain no one would disturb them. It must have been their own intimate romantic retreat, rather like Rachel’s private hallway and her secret hexagonal room. So when Sandra wanted a private talk with her little sister, she had automatically taken Rachel to the place that she herself had habitually gone when she wanted privacy. Or perhaps, her sister had wanted to see the special place she had shared with the boy she loved and had merely taken her sister along because Rachel happened to be there.
“Do you ever see an asrai?” asked Vlad, his voice still speaking right beside her ear.
Rachel shook her head. “I’m surprised they allow river nymphs so close to the school. Aren’t they dangerous?”
“Asrai? No. They are very shy and retiring. It is quite an honor to see one.”
“Oh!” Rachel peered more closely at the frozen curtains of ice. Nothing moved. She tried remembering back, but she still saw no sign of motion in the waters. “What do they look like?”
“Lovely young women made of wind and water.”
“Then they are like river nymphs, only not murderous.”
“Murderous?” Vlad’s voice rose. “Do you know of many murderous nymphs?”
“I live along the River Dart. By ancient covenant, Dart’s allowed to claim one human life a year.”
“And your father allows this?”
Rachel shrugged. “What can he do? It is his duty to uphold the covenants. It used to be worse, centuries ago, before she was bound.”
“She kills a person a year?”
“Not always. If she can grab someone in the winter months, she gets away with it, but if she has not killed by the Spring Equinox, we make a man of straw and hold a huge ceremony, where we mourn and wail and carry on—so that it seems as if she has taken something of worth from us. Then one of the townspeople pens an article for one of the mundane papers, saying how so-and-so has died and how tragic it is. And isn’t it good that Dart took someone early this year, so we are all free to enjoy her waters for the rest of the months? And it’s done.”
“Why put an article in the Unwary papers?”
“Even the Unwary believe that Dart kills. They have a saying that goes: ‘Dart, Dart, cruel Dart, every year thou claim’st a heart.’ It’s their local legend.” Rachel turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Don’t you have murderous river maidens in Bavaria, too? I thought the Rhine was famous for them. What about Lorelei?”
“We have many legends about Rhine Maidens, but no one has seen Lorelei in many, many years. I believe the last reported sighting was in the time of my great-grandfather, and the members of my family are very long-lived. We do have a statue of her though.” His voice sounded thoughtful, but it was dark enough now that she could not quite make out his features.
Rachel climbed onto her feet and began making her way back across the snow. Vlad fell in beside her. Stepping from the shore to the ice was always tricky, but soon they were gliding across its smooth surface again, back toward the illumination of the wisp sculptures.
“What does she look like?” Rachel reached out and slipped her hand into Vlad’s again.
“The statue of Lorelei?” he asked. “It looks like Lorelei Wednesday.”
“You mean our Rory Wednesday?” Rachel exclaimed in surprise. “The most beautiful girl on campus—except for the princess? That Miss Wednesday? Do you think Rory could actually be the Rhine Maiden?”
“She could be a descendant, I would think,” replied Vlad. “I hardly think she is the Rhine Maiden herself. That would be decidedly strange.”
Rachel looked up at him. “Stranger than you actually being a Gypsy swan king from another dimension?”
Vlad gave a short, sharp laugh. “Perhaps not.” He paused. “You mentioned that you had something of dire import to discuss? Or have we already spoken of that?”
“I do.” Rachel looked around nervously. “And, no, not yet.”
Von Dread looked around at the trees and ice. A few blue and violet wisps floated nearby. The other skaters all seemed to be gathered beneath the lantern-shaped wisp-sculptures, where it was bright enough to see the ice.
“We are alone,” he observed, letting go of her hand and crossing his arms. “There may be methods to spy on us that I am unaware of, though. Such as some of your methods. I assume you will not be spying on us while we are speaking?”
“No.” Rachel snorted with mirth. “Vlad, I’ll try to explain the situation without saying too much. My father is not the only one whose memories were changed. Mine were changed, too. Only I also recall my original memories. But I am afraid to let in front of anyone who…” she pursed her lips together, and looked around nervously, “…might be related to anyone who might have wanted me not to have my real memories.”
She watched his face very carefully. He looked a little confused, which was a first.
“Might be related…” Dread frowned. “Wait, why change your memories? How does that make any sense? Wouldn’t your friends just remind you? How ridiculous. If the being who tried to change your memories is the one I think it is, I assume it might have known it would fail. Unless I am not guessing correctly, which is a strong possibility, since I do not even begin to claim that I can guess from whom you are getting your information. My father would be impressed. He is not easy to impress.”
Enough of the gold-white light reached them where they skated now for Rachel to be able to make out his expression. He looked slightly sad, as if he really were a nineteen-year-old boy who wished he could impress his father.
Rachel bit her lip, touched by this glimpse through the chink in the wall of the fortress that was Dread. She had never seen him look vulnerable before. This glimpse into his inner world went to her head like wine. She felt as if she were back by the waterfall staring down at the pool—only as if the drop was much deeper, and the pool much larger, a veritable ocean above which she teetered dangerously—as if she were standing on a tiny platform that might, at any moment, pull free of its few restraints and plunge down into the dark purple waters of the ocean of the heart.
Sternly, she pulled herself back from this particular brink. She had the best of boyfriends, after all, and she was hardly going to try to win Vlad away from her own sister. As long as this was a day for brutal honesty, however, she had to admit that she had been wrong when she congratulated herself for not looking at any boy but Gaius. She had forgotten that there was one other boy who occasionally came dangerously close to turning her head.
Vladimir straightened and became the Dread everyone knew again. “I can control information leaving the school in many ways. But I cannot stop someone from stepping into a dream. Perhaps you could speak to the power that implanted the false memories?”
“There are two powers involved,” Rachel said slowly. “We can call them the Dark Angel and the Master of the World. The Master is the one I am worried about. The other one…” She smiled and murmured softly. “That one can do no wrong in my eyes.”
“This second one, this so called Master, is a man?” Vlad asked imperiously. “If so, he will be reasoned with or dealt with. He should elect the former.”
Rachel actually smiled, a real smile. “Thank you
, Vlad. That makes me feel much more cheerful. And safe.”
He nodded grimly, but Rachel could tell that her words pleased him. He was gratified that his presence made her feel safe. She suppressed a girlish sigh. He was so cute! It was a very good thing that she liked Sandra so very, very much. No lesser woman would deserve him!
Skating closer, she tugged on his sleeve until he leaned toward her. She said softly, “The Master of the World is the one who took my father’s memory away. He made the Guardian do it. He can order the Guardian around.”
Vladimir’s pupils widened. “That is…something. Do you know why he did it? Was it something to protect the world?”
“My father broke a covenant he had made with him. Father thought…he misunderstood what I was saying and thought the Guardian had tried to hurt me. So Father…did something to get the Guardian’s attention. Something that affected the Wall that protects the world.”
Dread stood a little straighter. “What did he do? No.” He raised his hand. “It’s better not to know. Perhaps…Are you going to try and heal your father? Or should we leave him as he is? It is up to you.”
Rachel’s voice shook slightly. “I’m afraid of the Master of the World.”
Feeling suddenly exposed, she peered into the darkness beneath the trees, recalling the woodwose and the troll and the other creatures that the Raven had said were aprowl. She caught no sign of anything untoward. Sternly, she reminded herself that, whatever those nasties were about, they could not enter school grounds. The tension in her chest eased slightly.
“He is an unknown. And he is powerful.” Vladimir nodded. “He has control over our lives, and we know nothing about him.” He paused and then continued with calm determination. “We must discover more. His interests. His weaknesses.”
“Vlad, there is more. The Master of the World…” Rachel took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice from trembling. It had been this final piece that had stunned Gaius. If Von Dread went into shock as Gaius had, she did not know how she was going to bear it. “The Master of the World is the head of the Romanov family. He’s the father of the King of Magical Australia.”
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 39
